


Beyond Light Years

by aph_angliska



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alien Planet, Alien Technology, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, AmeChu, Artificial Intelligence, Existential Crisis, Isolation, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Multi, NASA, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outer Space, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robots, Science Fiction, Suicidal Thoughts, not everything is edgy, there are some funnies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27205520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aph_angliska/pseuds/aph_angliska
Summary: He had prepared his whole life for this mission. Every single minute, hour, day he was putting in the blood, sweat and tears that meant that he could fulfill his dreams. To become an astronaut, to see the ethereal gaze of the universe past the helmet of his spacesuit.And he still couldn't even have that. Not even when he dedicated his whole life to it. No! Everything had to go completely fucking wrong!
Relationships: America/China (Hetalia)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> TW for suicide ideation and some existential thoughts. (yao's trapped in the middle of space goddamnit)
> 
> It does get slightly more light hearted as the story progresses. This is my first multi chaptered fanfic so it definitely won't be perfect. If you have anything to say let me know, but please phrase it like you're talking to a child because I am an extremely sensitive person lol
> 
> Also this isn't meant to be accurate. Please take most sciencey things with the grainiest grain of salt you can get your hands on.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated! :-)

It wasn't until the fourth month during the journey to Mars that everything took a turn for the worst.

Yao’s role on his ship was mainly an engineer, as well as specialising in physics and some chemistry. He would be the first person to check out any damages or problems and keep things running smoothly. 

At the time it happened, he was geared up in his spacesuit, carefully replacing damaged carbon dioxide filters on the side of the ship. Another member of his crew was accompanying him as he did so, handing him the tools to make the job slightly easier.

They didn't talk at all. Working outside of the ship was stressful enough, especially as they were only attached to it via a flimsy cord. Yao needed to divert all of his focus into carefully unscrewing delicate pieces of metal in a way that didn't send them veering into the void. One simple mistake could’ve easily rendered them toast.

The radio in his suit crackled for a second before he heard his captain’s voice commanding them to get back in the ship immediately. Something was wrong. They had to get back on deck.

Yao didn't want to abort his task now, especially as he was just in the middle of a precise operation. However, he didn't want to further endanger himself or his fellow comrade. With a sigh, he and his crewmate packed away their tools and followed the cord back into the airlock.

Once the pressure returned to one atmosphere, they both stripped off the astronaut gear and headed into the common room to see what the problem was.

The rest of the crew was already present. Everyone looked nervous. Some people were standing, others were sitting. Yao wondered what was drastic enough to make everyone anxious. If they had managed to stay calm during their _launch_ , then what the hell was this about?

Yao turned his gaze towards the captain. Her eyebrows were raised, mouth parted to display utter disbelief. She was about to address the crew when a loud rattling interrupted her, followed by the most violent lurch Yao had experienced in his life. It made the ones in the training simulations seem like a children's merry go round. He was instantly flung into the wall like a ragdoll. He rolled off on the floor, struggling for breath, when the ship started to accelerate.

And _fast_.

The g-force was so strong, Yao was physically unable to move as the ship sped up, fighting to even keep conscious. It felt like something was dragging them out of course.

But as abruptly as it began, the ship suddenly fell to a stand still. He slammed his face onto the metal floor as the forces holding him in space came to a halt.

The last things Yao could make out was the blaring of alarms and a crewmate dragging him out of the wrecked common room. There was the piercing ring of alarms, and the distinct sound of something banging on metal. Everything was slipping away so quickly and he was helpless to stop it. 

Finally, it all faded to dark.

When he woke up, an ungodly time later, he instantly knew he was fucked. There was a painful ringing sensation in his ears that quickly dissipated into silence. Everything was now eerily silent. He hoped that it wasn't just because his hearing was damaged. 

A knot in his chest tightened as he realised he was enclosed in a tight, metal crawl space. There was a brief sense of alarm, followed by realisation. It was one of the tiny panic rooms to hide in that NASA had put in the ship, just in case it wasn't safe to come out in the main area. Who had put him there? Maybe someone on the crew. Maybe everyone else was hiding as well.

Yao was laying on his back, pressed up against one of the cramped walls. There was just enough space to awkwardly sit up. In front of him was a small computer panel. There were several alerts- a few of which were the airlock being breached, but upon checking the ship’s cameras it seemed like they were closed again.

Yao took in the scene from the live feed, his hand anxiously flipping from camera to camera. It was difficult to grasp in his current woozy state. 

There was no-one to be seen. Squinting at the grainy footage, he realised there was blood splattered on the walls, smeared across like there had been a fight. He swallowed nervously. Outside one of the airlocks, there was a long trail of blood along the floor. It looked like someone had been dragged outside of the ship. The victim put up quite a struggle, judging by the scratch marks raked across steel panels on the lower parts of the walls.

Questions started to pile up in his head. Did one of the crew turn homicidal? Was there an accident? A disease, even? Was.. there something else? The thought of it made his blood turn cold. Something sinister had happened and he knew he was lucky to even be alive. 

Yao tried to think clearly. He attempted to contact NASA, hoping that they would have answers. But there was no connection to be made. The ship just couldn't make a signal. His stomach twisted painfully. 

He checked the other alerts briefly and his eyes widened in utter disbelief. These would explain the lack of communication.

The ship was roughly ninety _thousand_ AUs off of course. That would mean he was within the outer edges of the Oort cloud. 

Yao took a moment to process the information. He inhaled, sucking in a deep breath. When he exhaled, he screamed. 

He screamed as loud as possible until he felt his voice grow hoarse and weary. Nothing else would be able to hear him anyways. The crawl space was completely soundproof- not to mention he was thirty fucking thousand years away from Earth.

His voice eventually wavered out into a dry croak. Having no other outlet to vent the multitude of distressing emotions, Yao pressed himself into a tight ball on the cold floor and fell asleep. 

He woke up only a few hours later. It wasn't a good nap by any means, but he felt a fraction more refreshed.

The horrific feeling of isolation was still laying heavy in his gut. A small waiver of hope that at least one of the crew remained still persisted. 

With nothing left to lose, Yao reached over to slide open the panic room’s door. He scooted across the tiny compartment and hopped out, landing on metal flooring. 

The only sound that remained was the background hum of the ship’s generators. Yao started to wander around the corridors, his footsteps echoing loudly through the empty interior as he checked other crawlspaces. No-one. Not even a trace of a person. 

He was completely and utterly alone. 

The sinking feeling in his gut had intensified into an actual pain. He doubled down, clenching his stomach and let out a sob.

Isolated. 

Even if by some miracle he was able to contact NASA, he’d be dead well over hundreds of thousands of times before he could reach Earth.

Yao let himself sink to the floor. He was still crying, undoubtedly. He knew he should probably end it soon, before the isolation would completely shatter his sanity. Starvation was imminent. The rations would last him six years out here.

What was worse than that, though? 

The thing that had dragged them out here? 

He wondered if his crewmates were experiencing a fate a hundred times worse than his. Maybe they were already dead. 

The questions rattled in his head. Yao eventually got up when thinking was too painful to bear. He headed to his cabin to one of the computers. There were some simple games there he could play to pass the time. Normally, he’d face his problems head on. But this situation was possibly the last thing he wanted to face. Any distraction he was grateful for. He had to keep himself occupied.

The hours bled into days which bled into weeks and months. Yao hardly kept track of time anymore. His day usually consisted of watching shows on the computer and doing maintenance.  
He kept a habit of talking to himself, mostly because the silence drove him insane.

The ship was starting to deteriorate, no matter how much fixing he could do. The lights would start flickering. New things would go bump in the night. Sometimes the computer would turn off randomly. 

According to his digital calendar, he was meant to be back on earth by now. The daily red alerts of how far off track he was got so fucking annoying he had to hack the computer to programme them out himself.

The food was steadily declining. At the most, he had three years until starvation. It was a miracle other parts of the ship haven't given out by now.

Yao knew he would have to kill himself at some point. He should've done it on the day everyone went missing. Maybe death was a better option than the isolation ripping himself from the inside out. 

But he was too scared to do it.

There's nothing heroic about overdosing on pills, tens of thousands of years from the nearest living thing. If he expected to die in space, it would've been fighting for his crew, protecting them until his dying breath. At least that would've been worthwhile.

Out here was different. On Earth, people were detached when looking at the sheer scale of the universe. But experiencing it first hand painfully put him into perspective. It was horrifically depressing how little meaning his life actually had.

Yao ran his hands through his hair and pushed back those thoughts. There was probably some fixing to do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for electrocution & drugging right at the end if anyone is sensitive to that.
> 
> Please enjoy the chapter!! I will try and reply to comments ahah i actually forgot to do that.  
> BTW, i have posted a few illustrations for this fic on my instagram @chinamochiss if you're interested.

“So like, are you _sure_ this is the ship?”

“Of course I’m sure, Alfred. Don't be silly!”

“Well- If the UIS is hot on its ass and sees us with it, we’re fucked. We’re already criminals- do you want us to be like, double criminals?”

“That's.. That's not how it works.”

“Ivan. I’m just sayin’. They’ll pin the blame on us for tampering with developing societies." His voice trailed off at that reminder. "Do you reckon they're all dead?”

Ivan shrugged his shoulders as he loaded in the airlock, one of his four arms swiping a projection from a device on his wrist. 

“What does it say?” Alfred asked, squeezing his tail into a space suit. Why couldn't anything fucking fit properly?

“The UIS can't detect the ship at all. We should be okay.”

“How’d you get that? Did you hack their secret government records?”

Ivan laughed. “I searched up the ship’s serial number from that notice. They're giving a huge reward to anyone who retrieves it.”

“Great! There's probably like a million different crews in the area now.” Alfred fitted the helmet over his head. “Not to mention probably a fuck ton of patrol vehicles.” 

“Arthur already compromised the ship. It's in our pull- we just need to pick out anything valuable inside before it's processed.”

“Ahh.. scrap metal. I hope it goes for a pretty price ‘cause I don't wanna have to do a bunch of sketchy jobs again.” Alfred’s waxy skin flushed pale yellow at the thought. 

“Alfred,” Ivan sighed. “That managed to buy us a new booster.”

“Imagine how _I_ feel!” Alfred protested.

Ivan smiled, giving up the argument. He knew Alfred didn't really care, he was just being annoying.

He depressurised the airlock once they were ready and opened the hatch. 

The ship was already in view. It was quite primitive technology, lacking any boosters that would make meanwhile intergalactic space travel. He frowned. The metal they’d harvest from it would barely go for enough credits to scrape by.

A _human_ on the other hand..

\------------------------

Yao was rudely awoken to the harsh beeping of multiple alarms. He sat up and stumbled out of bed, scrambling for the computer. It took five tries to enter his password but he immediately found the source of the problem. Airlock breach. 

He stood up and rushed towards the spare spacesuit, the one that hung next to his bed for emergencies just like this. It would be clunky and difficult to navigate the ship’s interior in such a thing, but it was a better alternative than literally imploding. Although, by now, these life threatening situations had weathered him to the point where they felt like the norm. 

Peeping through the cabin door, Yao made sure the coast was clear before he made his way to the repair kit. Just in case. 

Most of the repair equipment had been used up to fix up things here and there during the past years. All that was left were some battered tools and a singular roll of tape. 

Yao picked up the tape in one hand. It was good, sturdy duct tape. Something not even NASA could improve upon. 

According to the alarms, the breach came from airlock two, so it was down at the back of the ship.

Yao had sealed off random rooms down here to save energy and the CO2 filters. It was slightly eerie, despite the blaring alarms. The boarded off doors and leaking pipes added to an abandoned look that only heightened the crippling isolation. Then suddenly, the alarms stopped. 

The ship was now silent. 

But his ears just managed to pick up a hushed noise.

As he slowly made his way to find out the source, the sound became clearer. It was the quiet, distant sound of bickering. Maybe he couldn't make out the words but it sounded like someone speaking. This was definitely insanity. 

Yao had hallucinated before in this isolated hell. People, voices, even the smell of fresh food. They were not frequent but it was something he could chalk it up to. At least a small part of him retained enough sanity to make a logical conclusion.

But they just sounded so real! And it was getting louder and louder as every second anxiously ticked away. He stayed still and held his breath. 

The sounds of footsteps gradually became audible as well as the bickering. By now he could decipher words. It was definitely English, but there was something off about it. Their accents were strange, words clipped oddly as if it wasn't a human speaking. A weird feeling of relief washed over Yao. He hadn’t seen anyone for fucking years and the sound of a voice that wasn’t AI or his own was enough to bring tears to his eyes. 

It seemed like they were just around the corner. Yao tensed up. The sound of footsteps ricocheted off the metal interior, drowning out the humming of the generators. 

He didn't know what would be worse: if he had lost the plot or if they were actually real. 

His fingers clenched the roll of duct tape. There weren't really any adequate weapons on board since NASA didn't expect any break ins to occur. And he had never taken any self defense classes so fighting was well out of the question. But if this thing was real and hostile then maybe it would've killed him already. After all, the thing that caused the rest of the crew to disappear didn't seem to hesitate for any amount of mercy. 

A shadow suddenly bent around the corner, snapping Yao out of thought. The sight of it kicked him into motion and he stumbled backwards a few steps, before running back to his cabin, making sure to lock the door. It must've heard him- if the thing even had ears. He shuddered at the thought of what an alien might look like. 

How.. How was this happening? Were all these years some ridiculously elaborate prank? He was alone in space, floating in the bleakness of the void. Nothing was alive here.

Unless those things were back. But that seemed unlikely.

Just after waking up on that catastrophic day, he had checked the footage on the ship’s cameras. It was strange. He couldn't identify anything happening. One second the crew was there, the other second they were gone. He still had no idea what the blood was about. If the things wanted him, they would've had him by now. 

Oh. Right. Cameras. Yao rushed towards his computer. His trembling fingers typed in the login and he flicked through the security footage.

Two figures. One was significantly taller than the other, head brushing the paneled ceiling as it walked. They seemed to be wearing some sort of space suit.

Yao ran a hand through his hair, unable to fucking believe it. 

There were… _people_.

Not exactly people. Okay- well, definitely not people. But they were humanoid, to say the least. 

It was impossible to tell what their intentions were for now. They didn't seem outwardly aggressive, just searching through the ship’s interior. He didn't know what his next move should be. Maybe the best thing to do was to wait for whatever to happen- happen.

Yao shook his head and stood up. He wouldn't do that. 

There wasn't much left to lose. Yao wasn't particularly wreckless, but he felt like even meeting his end towards the hand of an alien was better than sitting it out in this slightly glorified sarcophagus. 

The aliens crossed a corner. They were heading towards his cabin.

He walked to the repair kit and pulled out a worn out wrench. Any weapon was better than none. Maybe if he took down the aliens, he could head back to Earth in whatever form of transportation they were using. 

Yao put his hand on the cabin door’s handle. The footsteps of the aliens were coming closer. When he decided they were within hitting range, he flung the door open and jumped outside. Before he could swing the wrench down on their heads, a jet of pulsing light suddenly engulfed him. The wrench slipped from his hands and he fell to the floor, his limbs spasming as the electricity caused his muscles to seize. There were a few seconds of painful spasms before he went rigid and still. 

In this dazed state Yao could do nothing but only look up. The two aliens towered over him. They were speaking to each other, although Yao couldn't decipher anything in this state. 

A small dart suddenly pierced his skin.. In almost an instant, heaviness started to spread throughout his body until it was impossible to keep his eyes open. With a deflated groan, his consciousness slipped away.


	3. Chapter 3

Waking up, Yao could instantly tell that he wasn't in his cabin. After years of sleeping in that god forsaken thing he _knew_ when something was off. 

His body still had a sense of heaviness, his muscles lagging behind the demands of his brain. It must've been the effects of that dart wearing off. Those damned aliens’ intentions could be literally anything _but_ friendly. Although, what was most important was that he was still alive and not being probed. He was safe.

For now. 

When he mustered up the strength to do so, Yao sat up to register his surroundings. 

It was just a bed, like a tiny cubicle. One of the sides was a huge window that revealed the empty expanse of space. He marvelled at how thin it was. With one finger, he reached out to touch it. As he felt the surface, it distorted slightly, almost like pressing too hard on a computer screen. The thing must’ve been a force field of some sort. 

Interesting.

Yao turned his attention back to the other wall. Being trapped in this tiny compartment was beginning to remind him of the traumatising moment that his whole life fell apart. The first few seconds of wondrous novelty had worn off and it was actually starting to make him feel nauseous.

The wall had a small handle that he quickly yanked on to reveal the rest of the new cabin.

The main part of the room was quite large. It was rectangular in shape and painted in an off white. There were darker accents that drew his attention to the other furniture. A desk, chair and a screen, all minimalist in design. The whole room reminded him of a slightly futuristic hotel. 

Yao slid off the bed, slightly taken aback at how big the drop was. As he walked around the cabin for a closer look, he realised everything was on a slightly larger scale than normal. 

In the farthest corner of the room he spotted the door. As he started making his way towards it, the thing slid open automatically. Now he was walking into a wide, spacious corridor. 

The walls were a blueish grey, significantly darker than that of the room he woke up in. The corridor wasn't as neat, though, with mirrors and even some posters stuck proudly on the panelling. There were pipes and some visible wires. protruding the lower edges of the walls. The wires seemed to be stuck randomly, even amateurish, as if someone with little experience had done some fixing.

A heavy silence clung to everything, making the corridors seem dead. The only sound that pervailed was the distant hum of a generator. 

“Everyone else is asleep.”

Yao jumped at the voice, clenching his heart as it hammered in his chest. Strangely enough, the voice had seemed to come from all directions. He frowned as he composed himself, remembering why he was here in the first place. 

“What are you?” His tone had a spitting edge of venom to it. After all these were the people that had presumably tasered and kidnapped him.

“I technically control the ship. But Alfred doesn't like it when I call myself the captain.”

Instead of responding, Yao started to hunt for the source of the voice. He paced along the corridor, expecting to find something. But there was nothing. Not even a speaker to be seen. 

“Idiot!” Yao wasn't too fond of the voice’s sharp, aggressive tone. “There's no point in looking for me, unless you want to wake everyone else up with that racket you're making.”

Yao slowed down and started a leisurely walk down the corridor, not hugely enjoying being harassed by a vaguely British disembodied voice. 

“I told you, they're asleep. Don't disturb them.”

The corridor took a left, and a flight of metal stairs came in view. The wires that wrapped around the panelling started to writhe. Yao broke into a jog, slightly alarmed at this new development.

“Git! Stop moving!”

One of the wires managed to break loose and Yao dived to the floor, narrowly avoiding it wrapping around his ankle. He scrambled to his feet and quickly sprinted towards those stairs.

Yao’s footsteps clacked across the corridor as he ran, the only other noises being the sound of writhing wires and his panting. This alarming panic was a nice change from the looming terror that had chipped away at his mental state for years. 

Despite having spent most of his life being fit, as what was expected for an astronaut, middle age and lack of exercise had started to catch up with him. By the time he was speeding up the first step, a cramp had seized his calf. 

But Yao was determined to go on. The angry voice was enough motivation alone. 

“I’m sending you out the fucking airlock once I get my hands on you, damnit!”

He managed to stumble his way up the stairs, slamming into the hard metal in a convoluted manner. 

The second floor of the ship wasn’t as maze-like. It was a large room, almost like a lobby, with many doors leading off on every wall. 

But he didn't have time to get a good study of his surroundings with the angry thing hot on his heels.

Yao immediately headed for the nearest door, ignoring how badly his leg hurt. 

Instead of the door automatically opening like his own did, he ran straight into it. There was a loud and painful crack as his face smacked into the metal.

He crumpled to the floor and groaned, holding his face in pain. Today just was not his day. Neither were the past four years- but especially today.

“I control the ship, brainlet. Do you think I’d open that door so you could waltz right into A- You woke him up-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Yao hissed, hoping whatever fate that met him would get it over with quickly. He was already starting to get impatient. 

The voice lapsed into a stunned silence. 

After his irate outburst, Yao exhaled and decided to sit up, deciding it was better than sulking. He was actually starting to get sick of this disembodied voice. It seemed like it had all bark and no bite. “Who did I wake up?”

As if on a cue, the door in front of him slid open. He tilted his head to see who it was. 

It was the taller alien from the ship. 

Now that Yao could get a good look at him, it seemed to be just above 7 feet. It had smooth, dappled orange skin that was accented with pale yellows. Four eyes peered at him, a larger pair stacked above a smaller set. Both of them had crimson scleras and sapphire blue irises. Its teeth were red in colour and protruded out of his mouth like a crocodile. The hair-like structure that adorned its scalp seemed to be made out of yellowish soft segments of flesh, hanging over drooping ears that twitched at every noise.

Four fingers. A thick, long tail. A bit on the pudgier side. The alien seemed to be like the anthropomorphic cross between a dinosaur and a salamander. 

It offered Yao a hand. He took it, noting the subtle slipperiness to its skin as it helped him up.

They stared at each other for a few moments in silence. Yao was in awe at the alien. He wanted to reach out to touch it again, but he didn't want to make it angry. After all, he just rudely woke it up. 

The scoff of the disembodied voice managed to return Yao back to his senses. He cleared his throat. 

“Are you Alfred?” 

“Oh! Yeah, I got quite a bit of rep these days. Say, was it Arthur who told you about me?” Alfed’s voice was distinctly American, yet possessed a strange quality to it, almost like he was swallowing his words. He began to walk as he spoke, heading towards the stairs, giving Yao no option but to follow. 

“Who's Arthur?” Yao felt a vulnerability in a sense by asking all these questions. In all his life, he’d never felt like he was the dumbest in the room. 

“A.I- the guy that made you run into that door, y’know?” 

“I can introduce myself. Dickhead.” Arthur bustled in. 

“Aaaanyways, you come from a stage 3 civilisation, right? So you're probably confused right now. Which is understandable, y’know, shit happens- but I gotta explain it to you.”

They walked down the stairs, passing the cabin that Yao woke up in. The ship’s interior seemed confusing, they were taking seemingly random lefts and rights until Alfred was banging noisily on a door.

“Ivaaaaaaaan!”

There was a muffled whine from within, followed by the clopping of what sounded like… hooves?

Alfred folded his arms. “Artie, what time is it?”

“You're going to have to be more specific. There are thousands of different time zones.” 

“The one that we set, dumbass.” 

“07:00.” Arthur responded. Yao couldn't tell if Arthur was actually this annoying, or was just being difficult as humanly possible. 

The door opened. Ivan stood there, greeting them with a smile.

Ivan was shorter, slightly taller than Yao give or take. Most noticeably, he had four arms and a long, thin tail with a plumed end. His pupils and scleras were completely black. On his head there was fluffy platinum blonde hair and a pair of stubby horns as well as two protruding ears akin to that of a deer’s. His legs were long, digitigrade in shape, ending with two hooves. 

There was something off about how Ivan stared at him. His intense gaze was enough to unsettle Yao and make him nervous. It was almost like he was trying to see _through_ him.

Alfred, however, was completely oblivious to this. He put an arm around Yao and smiled broadly at him, revealing those blood red fangs. 

“Let’s go to the kitchen. You must be pretty famished after all this, huh?”

The kitchen was down another floor. It was slightly hotter here. It was huge, probably suited to feeding a whole battalion of aliens. Everything was made of metal, reminding him of the large, impersonal kitchens in restaurants and cafeterias. 

“Is there anyone else on the ship?” 

The ship was simply massive. It couldn't just be the three of them. Or four, if you count Arthur’s lack of physical form.

“No. It's just us.” The voice of Arthur managed to follow them consistently everywhere. 

Ivan sat down by a table. The chair he was in was tall and thin, made of the same polished metal. He started to mess around with the device on his wrist, like playing on a phone.

Yao decided to settle down next to him. He had always fancied himself as a relatively decent cook and wondered how alien food would fare out. It couldn’t be completely inedible- they were vaguely humanoid, at least. 

Alfred was opening various cupboards and scrounging for what looked like packets of dried food. He emptied them into a bowl and shoved them into a sleek steel box. When he felt like that was enough, his eyes immediately landed on Yao, seeking him out. “Hey! I bet you’ve never seen something like this before, right?” 

“Seen what? A microwave?” This made Alfred chuckle, slapping the top of the box with a hand. He shook his head.  
“No, silly! Look, Artie’s gonna do it in a sec.” 

On cue, the box glowed orange, white and then red, shaking profusely. There was a _ting!_ and it swung open again.

Alfred pulled a tray out with a now steaming platter of food. He approached their table, dumping it in front of them. 

Ivan smiled sweetly at Alfred, before sparing a withering glare at Yao. 

Alfred laughed at nothing in particular and plopped down next to them. His hand dug into a mashed potato looking dish and scooped out some onto his fingers.

“You ever seen something with two mouths?” 

Yao’s brows furrow slightly, wondering if he had misheard him. “What?” 

“Oh my gawd- you have to see this then!” Alfred broke out into laughter. He leaned over to smack Ivan's shoulder. “Show him!”

Ivan smiled again, his hand plucking out a meat looking item from the tray. Before Yao could question what the fuck Alfred had meant, the smaller alien’s head completely split in half. As it fell to the sides, it revealed circular revolving rows of sharp teeth down both sides of his face. Ivan dropped the meat in this new, horrifying mouth, and it was shred to pieces within seconds.

Yao’s eyes widened. Being isolated for so long frazzled his brain to the point where it took a good couple of seconds before jumping off his chair and _screaming_. 

After pointing and yelling, it took another while to realise that the pure shock was making Yao speak Chinese again. It would explain why Alfred was cocking his head so curiously at him. 

“Oh shit! Haha, the translator bugged out for a second. Had no idea what the hell you were saying.”

Alfred helped Yao back up on the seat with one arm, grinning widely. “You should eat, though. Seriously.” 

Yao made a strangled noise that died the second it escaped his lips. He was hungry. Starving, in fact. But Ivan's table manners probably put him off food for a lifetime. 

“Well, I ain’t gonna feed you. The biomonitor says you’ve got like, thousands of crazy ass diseases. And that was after your decontamination.” Alfred folded his arms and continued eating. 

After another ten minutes, the food has been completely picked clean. Mostly by Alfred, who didn't even bother to leave even a single scrap for Yao. 

Ivan hopped off his seat and wandered out of the kitchen. Alfred immediately started chatting to Yao. “I probably need to fill you in on this whole thing, then. Ivan's not much of a talker anywho.” He lifted up the plate, four eyes scanning the table for any scraps. “So uhhh, where to start- Have you heard of the UIS?” 

“The what?”

Alfred put the plate back down. He grinned and leaned into Yao, despite still speaking in that fairly loud tone. “Okay so- It’s like this big organisation of class four civilisations united under this kinda tyrannical government. Stands for United Interstellar States.” 

Yao nodded, despite not really getting it. He could only guess a class four civilisation was something more advanced than whatever humans were.

“And.. your solar system is kinda classed as a conversation zone so there's not really any traffic ‘cept for some approved scientific missions. You’d be classed as slightly endangered because you inhabit just one planet.” He shrugged and pulled back some of his flesh-hair. “Kinda doesn't make sense at first, but then if you think about it- like, one little asteroid could just- fuckin’ kill everyone.”

“Uh huh.” Yao really didn't like being so.. out of the know. As someone who was used to being looked at as a wise and knowledgeable figure, this new setting was extremely uncomfortable. 

He stared at Alfred, sort of unsure which pair of eyes he should be looking at. He was still grinning, of course. Sharp orange teeth flashed at him.  
“You okay, Yao?” 

Yao paused, pressing his lips together. He frowned. “How do you know my name?”

Alfred’s grin seemed to only grow wider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long wait, i actually haven't really been in a writing groove and it literally took me two months to actually finish the editing. 
> 
> also Yao has PTSD from being completely isolated for a few years... which is completely understandable... it's not completely major but it does alter his character quite a bit. 
> 
> also ivan has two mouths because his species have a separate tube for breathing, talking & eating. definitely makes more sense than what humans have-- no one chokes on anything.


End file.
